Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Here is a free downloadable pdf for students and educators in the visual arts!
A huge thank you to Christine Heindl, Anita Jung, and Arlyn Nathan for all that I learned from you when I was a new teacher. And a big, big thank you to all of my current and past students from whom I learn so much every year. Thank you for sharing your journey with me.

Monday, January 26, 2015

When I was a child, I read the Aesop’s tale of the Ant and the Grasshopper. It tells the story of the ants who work all day long and all night long, throughout the spring and summer season, sweating it out, gathering food and packing it away. The grasshopper is happily singing and playing his fiddles, all the while laughing at the ants for not knowing how to enjoy the summer’s day. Winter comes and grasshopper is all but dead until the compassion of the ants saves the life of the grasshopper.

This little tale engrained in me a fearful work ethic that fueled my non-stop-must-work attitude. It created in the mind of an eight year old “you play = you die”. This developed into “you fail = you will be homeless”.

Fear knows no logic, so this paradigm went on living in me, unchecked, until I was in my late thirties. That is a long time to believe in “you fail = you will be homeless”.

Then one day a friend of mine came over for dinner. She was a physician. This friend was working in the emergency room and was in the process of creating protocol for homeless people who came in for help. In telling this story my friend came to say something like, “in many cases the homeless are either going to be addicts or mentally ill...” and a little alarm bell in my brain went off. I stopped her and asked her to repeat herself about the homeless being either addicts or being mentally ill. She did as I asked. I don’t think I pushed her to add anything like, “a typical person, without anything catastrophic happening to them, usually do not become homeless because they don’t write up a good end of the year report.”

Suddenly, I felt like I got a “get out of jail free” card. The carrot, or was it a threat, was gone. It vanished. It was never real. I find myself again as Don Quixote.

Since then I have been working on the “play” part. It has been about ten years. I still find it hard to calm the nerves of the Generals inside of me who think about the threat of death and homelessness when I play. But having a child helps. Watching him play gives hope and faith in how we can be creative, productive, compassionate, and joyful all through play.

Saturday, January 24, 2015

I remember a talk I had with my father. It was my first summer break after I started college. I was probably sleeping in, watching lots of t.v., having endless coffee dates with friends and doing a whole lot of nothing. My father pulled me aside to have a talk. And it went something like this.

Yoon Soo, you must always have a goal. Even if your goal is not to have a goal. Otherwise, things will just happen to you. So you must have a goal. At all times.

Now once you have a goal, things will happen that will make want you to quit your goal. For example, let’s say your goal is to climb that mountain. So you start walking toward the mountain. And your legs hurt. And you get thirsty. And you get tired. And you think your goal is stupid. And so you think you should change your goal.

At this point, you must sit and think. No matter what your goal is, you will always want to give up at one point. And this is because most goals have some hardship to them. And because you don’t want to go through the hardship, you will think that the goal is stupid and you will want to change your goal. And sometimes the goal is stupid. But more likely then not, the work is harder than you expected. So at the moment when you think your goal is stupid, think about it, be honest with yourself and evaluate your goal for its worth. And if it still is worthy, work through the hardship. And achieve your goal.

I heard this story when I was 18. I still remember it now. I am more lenient about having multiple goals going at once, and putting things on the back burner, but the core of the message is not lost to me.

I used to plow through most goals with anger, vengeance and determination. Now I move forward with more hope, and more peace. For some reason, I am not in a rush. Even though I have less time left on this world than when I was 18, I am more relaxed about what I might achieve. And perhaps more measured.

Time feels very precious to me. And because of that I want to spend it well. And spending time well these days means to spend it doing meaningful things. Like friends and family. The people of my tribe. And sharing the love. Maybe that’s way I’m not in a rush anymore. Love is a daily practice and it is not a destination. If my goals used to be nouns maybe now it is a verb. Practice. Practice love. Practice joy.

My sabbatical has officially started. And I have fear. I have had this fear for the last year. It started when I was awarded sabbatical in January of 2014. The sabbatical was given for my intention to write children’s books about multiculturalism. And that was important to me. So I was good about this. Even though it scared me. But then something unexpected happened.

I was celebrating the joy of receiving sabbatical with my “sabbatical dance”, Eli asked me what I was so happy about. So I explained to him what sabbatical was and what my topic was. He immediately asked me if he could be my helper. I immediately said yes.

Then the fear kicked in. Why? Because in that moment, I bypassed being a writer, artist, designer, and I became a mother. A mother who wanted to create an experience of wonder and creativity. Of open mindedness and collaboration. Do you know what kind of a hoarder I am when it comes to creativity? I want complete control and domination. I exaggerate. But not really.

So whenever I thought about this children’s book, a part of me would shut down. It was because I was shushing myself.

Don’t think about your needs. Think about Eli and what kind of an experience you want to create for him. You are a control freak. How are you going to teach Eli about collaboration if you don’t want to or know how to?

Am I hard on myself? You bet I am.

I have been talking about writing this children’s book for a year now. And yet I lived in fear. Until one day recently I was having brunch with a new group of friends and the idea of the oxygen mask came up. Ahhhhhh. “In case of an emergency, please put on your own oxygen mask first.” You cannot help others when you yourself cannot breathe. Ah. So that’s why I felt like I was drowning all this time. Time to put on my own oxygen mask on first.

So I put my oxygen mask on. I got rid of my “you must do this and you should do that” list. It goes something like this:

You must start what you finished. (You must finish that one idea that you started a year ago. Even if you have other ideas that you want to pursue right now. What will you be teaching Eli about follow through?) You must think about the big lesson of these books. It is about multiculturalism after all and there is so much we have to learn about this. (Which makes for a dry, preachy book.) You should probably use your hands in the “making” aspect of the book instead of doing something digital so that it feels rich and personal. I know you want to comfort little kids, but you are a visual artist after all and you should think about what is edgy, cool and even Avant Garde.

So I got rid of all these should and musts. I looked through all my writing so far and let my curiosity guide me. And then I did what I was fearing the most: drawing. More specifically, the depiction of people of color. (But that is another story.) And would you believe it, I had a break through within a week. Seriously. I shared my idea with Eli and he loves it. We are well on our way to collaborate. We are now like two fish in the water: playful, experimenting and having lots of fun. The weight of “doing something that is really important” has been replaced with love and joy.

So I go back to my mantra for the last few years: Love and Joy. (Because I know how to work hard, and I know how to be hard on myself.) I collaborate with Eli with love and joy. If there is no love or joy in the process, then something is not right.

About Me

Yoon Soo Lee is a mother, wife, designer, artist and educator. She has been teaching at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth since 2001, and also at Vermont College of Fine Arts since 2011.
Yoon Soo’s practice moves around three core areas of study: the art of pedagogy, how to work in dialogue cross-discipline, and how to create art and design that is based on self-knowledge. These investigations have led to presentations at the AIGA Educators Conference, UCDA Design Educators Conference, grants from the National Institute of Health, presentations at the Cognitive Science Society and papers such as “Functional Criticism in the Graphic Design Classroom” published in “Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal”.
Yoon Soo studied at Seoul National University where she received her BFA and MFA, and she also studied at Western Michigan University where she received her second MFA in graphic design.